


Vermillion Pool

by BetaBoks



Category: Original Work
Genre: Amnesia (?), Blood (?), Gen, General descriptions of unwellness, Inspired by Hello Charlotte mainly, Longest thing I've ever written hooh!!, Surreal, Those question marks are there for a reason on the blood n amnesia tags
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-04
Updated: 2019-08-04
Packaged: 2020-07-31 03:07:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20108158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BetaBoks/pseuds/BetaBoks
Summary: A man, a boy, and a red lake.





	Vermillion Pool

There is someone standing at the edge of that vermillion pool, sporting washed out colours as he stares at its horizon. 

I’m not sure what he’s doing here. The umbrella he’s slung over his shoulder to protect himself from the rain that isn’t coming almost gives me an idea, but it’s muddled. It’s a piece of the puzzle that doesn’t fit, therefore it can’t be an answer.

“It goes on forever, if you look at it long enough.” The stranger says, not turning back to look at me quite yet. I wonder how he found out I was behind him, maybe my presence is just that much more noticeable than I gave it credit for. 

“You think so?” My words carry no echo. It’s strange for what’s supposed to be an enclosed space. The more I look around, the more the white blends into itself and the less I can make sense of things. I think he’s right, despite not wanting to.

Something stirs within the red tarn ahead of us— a white mass pokes out— but the ripples it manages to create are weak enough so the shore doesn’t so much as move an inch. It lives. I hadn’t expected it to. It’s also gone as soon as it appeared.

“I know so.” He finally replies, facing me with a slight twirl. His eyes are a startling shade of deep peach, saturated and dark enough to almost be a different colour. They fit right in, not nearly as tired as the rest of his palette. “The edges do curve a noticeable amount, but there’s no end to it. I can’t seem to solve it.”

I hum. His stare bores into my skull, and so I stop meeting his gaze. He doesn’t close his umbrella as he saunters up to me, and I wonder if I should tell him it’s bad luck to have umbrellas open indoors. Nothing comes out of my mouth, so I assume I know the answer to that query. 

“I know you can’t solve it either, so I’m wondering why you’re here, Mister Puppeteer.” His tone is jaded and pointed so it hits me like a dart. It pierces into me and settles there as I feel something burst. The title is so familiar, yet it seems far away, like the rest of this place. I am just now realizing the person in front of me can’t be any older than a child.

“I guess I’m not sure why I’m here.” I answer him honestly. “I just am. I assume you’re just here to try and solve… this?” I gesture vaguely in front of myself, and he spins his umbrella slightly as he shakes his head no.

“I’m here to visit an old friend, is all. Attempting to solve this dilemma is only something I did as a result of that.” I can’t help but feel the smile he’s giving me isn’t actually on his face, it doesn’t look like it belongs at all, like some sort of superimposed cut-out you’d find from an editing glitch. It’s concerning, considering it’s faint enough to miss.

“... An old friend?” I put a hand up to my lips, almost not feeling anything there. The mental image of two little kids running around along the puddled edge of a crimson surface creeps into my mind, and right after the question of if the liquid stains pops up. The thought fades as soon as I realize the edge hasn’t been disturbed, the floor is still completely pristine white, still solid and artificial under our feet. 

I refer to the liquid of the lake as simply red, because I’m not sure what it is. I want to get closer, maybe feel it, but I fear it would kill me. The boy in front of me seems to share that fear, having come in a raincoat and gloves, but I can never be certain if we’ve had the same thought. I wouldn’t ask him in a million years. 

It looks shallow enough to walk across, as if it were a giant’s spill, but the occasional shifts under the almost glossy surface betray that facade. I also wonder if it’s like an actual lake, if it gets deeper as it goes along or if it’s just deep from edge to edge. Maybe it’s not deep at all, and that’s why things keep bubbling to the surface, but I’ll never know. The liquid is hardly transparent. 

The silence I filled with my thoughts finally broke when the boy decided to make his way back to the edge, shadows coating his back like they had not a few minutes before. I followed him this time, suddenly wishing for some sort of ledge I could sit on to dangle my legs off of. Even if my fear wasn’t bulging in my throat right now, I would never soak my legs in this, not whilst clothed.

“You know, Mister, I resolved to call this the Anguish a while ago, but I don’t think I can.” I turn my head towards him, only managing to catch the side of his expectant feelings. He never answered my implied question, but I wasn’t going to press him now.

“Why the Anguish?” The question I ask this time is straightforward, it makes it easy to gauge if he’s just ignoring me. He takes a furtive glance at me before his eyes dart back. He does answer this time.

“Haven’t you looked at it? It looks like it’s suffering.” Incredulous. That’s what he sounds like, like he’s speaking to an idiot. Maybe he is, I’m not exactly sure of his standards for what that sort of thing is. His words make me squint, and though my vision staggers and my mind is full of mush, I find that he’s right again. I’m not sure if I want to admit it to myself this time either. 

“I suppose you’re right.” I mumble, but the silence carries it further than needed. 

The sight in front of me has lost its novelty and mystique, now replaced with tentative disgust, so my gaze wanders upward. I am met with white again, as I was earlier, but the back of my mind supplies me with the fact I should be unsettled at the lack of sky. Another little voice back there asks me snarkily why I think I’ve ever seen one.

The question becomes more valid the more I mull over it, so I discard my train of thought entirely. The boy is looking up at me again, and it seems my discomfort no longer dissuades him from openly staring. I begin to feel a phantom delirium as another question tumbles out of my mouth.

“Where is your friend?”

The words ring empty, and I can tell that I shouldn’t have asked. 

Still, the strange boy replies, and he chokes on his words as he does so.

“I’m not sure.” He lies through his teeth. _ I’m _ not sure how I can tell, but something about the shake in his tone gives it away as something that isn’t uneasiness. Was I always this perceptive? I have no way of telling. 

I decide to leave the thread of conversation hanging there, though it’s patheticness almost makes me want to hug the kid and tell him everything will be okay. It’s not the disingenuousness of that that unsettles me, but if not that I’m not sure what it could be. It doesn’t matter, I don’t do it anyways.

The moment lingers, and a deep-seated sense of hatred swells within me. Half my vision is blurred— no, _ blocked _ by something, but nothing is there. My mind spits at me questions I don’t want to think about. Why am I here? Why do I feel so sick? What am I supposed to gain from this?

One of them stood out to me, like a sore thumb amongst the more topical ones. _ Who am I? _

It’s a good question, and something about the calluses on my hands almost gives me an idea, but yet again it’s muddled._ A piece of the puzzle that doesn’t quite fit, therefore it can’t be an answer. _

The repetition frustrates me further, but I don’t understand why I’m feeling something so violent. The place unfolded in front of me is too serene for feelings like this to exist in the same space, and immediately I feel as if I were covered in grime. 

I am tarnishing something, I’m sure of it. At the same time, however, I feel as if this place wants to be tarnished by me. It welcomes me in its arms, though it has none, and it never has felt warm in any sense. 

None of the words I could ever use to describe it fit, but it sinks my chest further until it evaporates out of me. I don’t feel any lighter, it just makes my sickness worse. I almost forget the boy is there until he asks me what’s wrong, and my answer is completely mindless as I try to convince him that I’m fine. 

“So it’s gotten to you, too.” The boy gives me a pensive look, brushing a hand past my cheek as if it would reassure me in any way. He has to tiptoe a bit to comfortably reach my face, and his hand leaves a warm trail— he’s smeared something on me. 

I don’t think it’s intentional, I’m just bewildered by how I’d ever missed the fact the boy’s completely filthy as I am too. Smattered in blood, there’s a handprint here and there on his raincoat, and his umbrella is almost dripping the stuff. His rain boots, however, are pristine. Maybe today is the first time he wears them.

It strikes me, that it just looks like he’d had some sort of encounter with disturbing the lake’s surface, but I can’t seem to call the liquid in the lake blood. My eyes say it fits the description, but something about admitting it to myself fully is disturbing. The dissonance hits me like a train, and I decide to look away from both.

Away to what, though?

There was nothing behind me, just as empty as the way ahead of me, though my mind was feeble enough to trick itself into thinking there might be a wall not that far away. As long as I don’t go test the theory, the mirage will stay, but I find that it’s just as unpleasant to stare into the white void as it is to stare at the still red. 

I sink to my knees, being overcome with the sense of discomfort just as much as the other bothersome feelings that have rooted themselves inside me. I am a lot closer to the lake than I remember, but with a blink a sudden weight pulls me back. A shadow projects itself onto the floor below me, and I realize that what I was feeling was just the boy’s umbrella hugging my head and tapping my shoulders.

“It’s trying to make you a part of it.” He tries explaining, crouching next to me on his hands and knees to take a peek up at my face. His hood is now pulled over his head, crudely painted like the rest of his coat.

The first thought in my head is a hesitant “How would you know that?”, though it doesn’t line up with what I say in the slightest. 

“Is it lonely?”

I’m struck yet again with how vibrant the boy’s eyes are, but it’s hard to miss with how blown open they are now. I could get trapped in those and be happy, I muse, it would certainly be better than my current reality. I stop thinking about what-ifs when the boy closes his eyes and shakes his head at my question.

“No… We’re here, so it can’t possibly be.” He’s stuck between optimism and sheer melancholy, and he amazes me yet again. I blame it on the lake, and the desolation of this place. He is moving and he feels warm, the contrast is just comforting. 

Why does it feel so disconcerting to feel comfortable around him? It’s another one of the questions I bring up and then promptly discard just like the ones from earlier, because there is no way for me to answer. Nothing I could ever do in this space would ever answer that. I can’t pry that deep into him, he’s too small, I’d feel guilty for pulling him apart.

I don’t have to settle around him anyways, I resolve. 

My grip on the umbrella solidifies itself and I motion for him to stop grovelling, to sit down next to me instead. I’d feel much less awkward if he was with me but not in front of me. He doesn’t heed my motions, instead opting to stand up, and I’m hit with the sense that he doesn’t want to settle around me either. _ I can never be certain if we’ve had the same thought though, I wouldn’t ask him in a million years. _

The newfound atmosphere doesn’t add well, not to my condition. I feel the dizziness melt into my headache as nausea ferments itself into my throat now that nothing distracts me from the velvety surface a few feet from me. I’m beginning to sound like a broken record, and if reaching for the lake would finally make it stop tormenting me, I feel tempted to do so.

The boy beats me to it, though.

The sound of ruffling reaches my ears between the stillness, and his raincoat drops from his shoulders. It leaves its own puddle, an insignificant and dirty yellow, and soon enough it is joined by his rain boots. He doesn’t wear any socks, and his feet look dainty, in a sense, as does the rest of him now that he’s not covered. 

I hadn’t expected him to be wearing a dress shirt, it’s far too elegant, I feel. His suspenders don’t help in the slightest, but it’s the ensemble he’s gone with. No amount of me thinking it’s odd will change that. I can’t help but feel he blends into the background more, white on white, and that’s the most disappointing part of all.

There are so many things I can’t ask him. “What are you doing?” feels like one of them, but he answers my nosy question yet again.

“You feel sick, and I feel stuffy.” It makes about as much sense as it has to, and it grants me a bit of closure. He feels sick, and I feel stuffy— though I might be mixing those up.

He takes a cautious step forward, and then another, and after three he’s come to the edge of the lake. There is no movement, not even a gust of wind, so it doesn’t lap at his toes like it should. Instead, the surface tension just holds it there. It’s a peaceful sight to behold, but it fills me with the same unbridled anxiety as I felt before. I know what he’s going to do, but no amount of bracing helps me as I watch him take one more step. 

It holds under him, having decided that he has the right to walk on it, and so he takes the liberty to do so some more. Step, step, step, step, and now he’s a bit far from shore. He stops, almost marveling at himself as much as I am. Maybe this is one of the things he hadn’t been sure about. Despite having known him for so little, I know that’s something unusual for the poor soul.

His umbrella feels heavier on my back, and I know I won’t get to return it as I see him dance along with the surfacing bits of tainted white that come up from down under. A hand comes up to meet his and he entwines their fingers as he leads them in a clumsy pirouette. 

He’s known this for a long time, and whilst it was seemingly obvious before, it’s concrete now. I feel happy for him. 

Even though his movements aren’t physically graceful, they carry the same air, and I feel as though I’m watching a show of some sort. This is a privilege, and as it goes on, finally the cocktail of pain brewing inside me drains out slowly. I almost don’t hear him giggle, but he does, and soon the hands he’s danced with lead him peacefully to join them under the surface of the pool.

I don’t get to see his eyes one last time before they do, and it feels anticlimactic. 

The silence that had only hung over us before has now smothered me entirely, reminding me it was no longer just an option and now the reality of how things were. That’s fine, I’m thinking to myself, it’s my turn. 

I find the strength to stand up effortlessly, not once putting down the umbrella as I look down to where he once stood beside me. There’s something pitiful about the discarded items on the floor. The coat crumples awkwardly because of the permeable material its made out of, and one of the boots has fallen over onto its side. 

It’s unusual for something that weighty, but my rational mind provides explanations for why that sort of thing could happen. It’s nice to not be bogged down anymore. My thoughts are smooth now as they pass through my head, no longer bombarding me and deciding to just coexist as they should.

Ultimately I am glad to have a little bit of colour left with me that’s not just red and white. That sort of monotony would kill me, but I decide it would be a disservice to the boy to put on his coat and his boots, so I don’t. Instead I just keep what he himself gave me, holding it tight to my chest as my gaze wanders up again.

_ There is someone standing at the edge of that vermillion pool, sporting washed out colours as he stares at its horizon. _

**Author's Note:**

> I want to ask you, dear reader, how old did you think the boy in this story was?  
It's intriguing to find these things out, so indulge me, if you please.
> 
> I mostly based this off of this [this piece of art](https://twitter.com/Deltaboks/status/1157432963195449344), but that's also inspired by HC lol.
> 
> [Here's an actual art piece I did for the boy's ending.](https://twitter.com/Deltaboks/status/1158216225132036097)


End file.
